


And All the Haunt Be Ours

by Caepio



Category: Ancient History RPF, Antony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Βίοι Παράλληλοι - Πλούταρχος | Parallel Lives - Plutarch
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alexandria Leaving, CP Cavafy, Drug Addiction, F/M, Ghosts, Hallucinations, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Shakespeare, Shameless quoting, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, We Die Like Men, but i couldn't help myself, the Antony/Brutus is very slight, what is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-28 12:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20966618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caepio/pseuds/Caepio
Summary: Six times Marcus Antonius sees Brutus' ghost.





	1. Chapter 1

It never happens when he’s sober. It never happens during the day.

Three, four am is the usual time - when Antonius stumbles away from the opium, wine, and pounding music to a quiet part of the palace, and everything goes still.

The first time, it’s spring. (Two years before he kills himself.) There’s a cool wind coming from the sea, the stars are unrelenting, sharp pin pricks in the dark, and Antonius sits in the portico of one of the gardens, leaning against a columns, half awake.

He’s hazy, dehydrated, still a little drunk. He sprawls, head thrown back, just breathing enough for that moment.

_“Glad to see you’re making the most of it.”_

Sour, mocking, the voice sounds like it’s right at his shoulder and Antonius jerks upright, staring around.

There’s no one next to him, no one close enough to be that loud. His heart is pounding in his throat and he forces himself to settle.

Right ahead of him, straight, unwavering against the column opposite, stands Brutus. Half in, half out of the moonlight, he’s dressed like a traveler, cloak heavy and enveloping, sandals solid and well made. He isn’t moving. He isn’t breathing. He just stares, eyes darker, wider than dilation could make them.

Antonius swallows hard and doesn’t say anything.

“_You’ve really wrecked yourself_.” Judgement, derision, Brutus tilts his head to one side precisely and his gaze scans over Antonius. “_The triple pillar of the world **transformed.**_”

“You’re dead.” Antonius manages, voice cracking, a horrible feeling creeping up his spine. 

Brutus smiles, and Antonius feels his heart stumble, suddenly cold. “_Watch out,_” Brutus says, impassive, “_Or you’ll be too._”

Antonius scrambles to his feet, reaching for a dagger he doesn’t have at his side, but before he’s gone more than a step, Brutus fades back into the shadows, fluid, soundless. 

Forcing himself into the dark beneath the overhang, Antonius searches, tense and wary, up and down the portico - but the garden is empty, and whatever he’d seen, there’s now nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The astute observer may notice this bears a passing (more than passing) resemblance to an earlier piece of mine. But that one was written five years ago, (yeah yeah, I know posted it more recently) and I wanted to do something actually complete with that idea rather than just leave it there. (And of course there's an argument to be made that I wrote for shit five years ago). So here you go. Happy Halloween or _whatever_.
> 
> (Title is a quote from Antony and Cleopatra, 4.14:
> 
> Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,  
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:  
Dido and her Æneas shall want troops,  
And all the haunt be ours. )


	2. Chapter 2

It happens again. And again. A few rules - Midnight, moonlight, and always some degree of intoxication, inebriation, opium haze. 

Two weeks later. Just when Antonius was beginning to think, _Never happened_ \- He’s out walking in the city, alone for once, dressed like a common citizen - Like he’s done a hundred times before, but he’s alone, and there’s no joy in it tonight.

He turns a corner, coming out of an alleyway, dark as pitch, onto the wharf, and between one step and another, there’s a hollow echo to his footsteps, and when he looks — Brutus is at his side. 

“_You’re not fooling anyone._”

Antonius mulishly refuses to turn his gaze. He can just see Brutus out of the corner of his eye - His hood is up, but he knows the intractable angle of that jaw, the shape of that mouth. Antonius resolutely keeps his eyes on the Pharos. 

“_You don’t look like an Egyptian._”

Antonius stays silent.

“_You don't look like a Roman._”

Antonius lengthens his stride. 

“_You don’t look like anyone at all._”

Antonius stumbles.

“_You were a warrior. You were a leader. You **were**. You’re nothing now._”

Antonius turns sharply, and Brutus is _right there_, eyes too bright in the dark, mouth slanted in a sharp, mocking curve. 

“I still am those things.” Antonius says, low and harsh. 

“_Prove it._”

Silence. The wind coming in off the water. Creak of the ships. Antonius doesn’t move, paralysed.

“_I didn’t think so._” Brutus turns, going down the steep steps towards the beach. Antonius hesitates, but by the time he follows, scrambling down the steps in a half terrified rush, there is no one in sight, just the waves.


	3. Chapter 3

The coast of Libya, two nights after his first, failed suicide attempt. Lucilius had taken away his sword, so now Antonius sits up late, in the flickering lamplight, drinking himself into a stupor. 

He hears the door open and doesn’t raise his head from the table. No footsteps. He presses the heels of his hands hard against his eyes, shaking himself awake. Nothing is focussing but he can make out a familiar, narrow silhouette, a perpetually cool, military presence, and he speaks to that - “Go back to sleep, Lucilius. I can't kill myself with wine this bad.”

“_You wanted to be caught._”

Not Lucilius. 

Antonius forces his spine straight. Brutus is sitting across from him, hands precisely folded on the table before him, thin, luminously pale, a scar across the back of his right hand. 

Antonius sets his jaw, he’s not even surprised this time. He’s angry. 

“Who the fuck asked you?”

Brutus doesn’t say anything, twist to his mouth like a kouros, the edges of his outline wavering in Antonius’ unfocussed vision. 

“_When **I** did it,_” He says, “_I did it **right**._”

“First time for everything.” Antonius spits, and takes the nearly empty bottle, draining it in one. 

“_You’ve been this weak from the start._”

Antonius slams the bottle down with too much force at the edge of the table, it tips over and falls to the floor, smashing into a mess of shards and lees. 

Brutus doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. 

“You want to give me some advice?” Antonius demands, “You want to tell me what to do? Or are you just going to hiss your maledictions and fade?”

“_You know what to do._” 

“No. I don’t.” Antonius buries his head in his hands, tension building, avoiding the demanding, memento mori stare across from him.

“_You’ve always known_.”

“**_I don't_**.” Antonius roars, fingers pressing so hard against his skull it hurts.

Sound of footsteps, crack of glass beneath someone’s shoe. “Go on.” He mutters, inaudible, slurred, his voice breaking, “_Leave_. It’s what you _always do._”

“Sir?”

Antonius looks up. Lucilius is standing across the table from him, staring at the mess; the spilled wine, the broken glass, the trembling general. It’s only the two of them. Brutus is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Antonius goes back to Alexandria. When the ships burn, when his men fail, he goes out to the Pharos, self exiled from society. He still has some humor. He can still make comparisons. He calls his shabby hut the Timoneum. 

The solitude stretches out, uninterrupted, past the point of madness.

When Brutus appears (and Antonius has begun to expect it) he pretends he isn’t startled. He sits on the beach, watching the waves come in, silent.

Brutus sits with him, quiet, unobtrusive. He watches the waves. He keeps a precise, narrow distance. He doesn’t speak. He’s waiting for something. They both are. 

People come to his little peninsula. They try to talk to him. They don’t notice Brutus. Brutus is silent. And so is Antonius; he carves a message in the soft, chalky stone of the beach:

“The Misanthrope, Timon, lives here. So, go away; Pile curses on me if you want, only _go away_.” 

And when men come, asking him to return, Antonius points to it, and smiles like a kouros. 

When, at least, he hears of the desertions, when he knows there’s no one left to betray him, he gets up from his place on the shore. He knows Brutus is still there. He can feel him watching from the doorway with a scalpel gaze, incising, revealing. Antonius turns to look at him in the shadows, “I'm going to go.” He says. “I’m going to die. I know I’m going to die. And if I’m going to die, I’m going to try to live.”’

Brutus is silent, but Antonius can feel his gaze on the back of his neck as he fastens his cloak at the shoulder and starts back to the mainland, he can still feel it when he goes through the city gates, up the steps of the palace. He doesn't turn around. He doesn't look back. He doesn't need to. He knows what Brutus is waiting for, and he knows he'll see him again.


	5. Chapter 5

Nearly the end. 

July, one month left. 

It’s the middle of the night, Antonius is asleep, Cleopatra pressed against his side, sweet scent of ambergris and lotus filling the air.

Antonius is slow to wake. He’s aware, first, of the feeling of being watched - but that feeling rarely leaves him now. Then he hears the music, in the street outside, cymbals and soft bells, a pan flute underneath it all. Cleopatra doesn’t wake. 

Brutus is sitting at the foot of the bed, knees pulled up to his chest, watching them, eyes burning in the shadows. 

Antonius sits up, carefully sliding free from Cleopatra’s embrace. Brutus stands smoothly, a shadow a little darker, a little more palpable than the rest of the moonless night. He holds back the thin gauze of the curtains, and Antonius follows him out onto the balcony, into the stifling heat of the night. 

There’s torchlight in the streets. A wayward, wavering procession moving down through the city, the music fading in and out as though carried on the wind, but the air is still. 

_“Listen.”_ Brutus says quietly, for once almost normal, almost comforting in comparison, watching the eerie, graceful dancers of the troupe, _“They’re nearly gone.”_

Antonius leans against the marble railing of the balcony, Brutus beside him, so close they’re nearly touching, but Antonius doesn’t move.

_“You won’t see them again.”_

Antonius tears his gaze from the strange masque below, he knows what he should be feeling, he waits for tears to fill his eyes, but there’s nothing. He looks to Brutus and finds him abruptly unfamiliar, his hair wild, curling like vines, and his skin pale and silvery as the moon. 

_“Your god is leaving you, Antonius.”_

Brutus’ mouth is red as blood. 

_“Alexandria is leaving.”_

Antonius remembers when he found him in the mountains, the solitary, exact wound in his side, the blood spilling up from his lips. In the ghost light flickering up from the streets, the slubbed silk of Brutus’ clothes is as rich a purple as the paludamentum Antonius covered him with that night.

Antonius starts to speak, he has a sudden realisation he’s about to be alone, but Brutus shakes his head, _“No.”_ He steps back, out of Antonius’ sight, the music surging up. _“Don’t mourn.”_ He says quietly, _“Don’t be a coward.”_ The voice is right at his ear, as close as if Brutus were embracing him. Antonius imagines he can feel Brutus’ chest against his back, bracing, his breath on the nape of his neck when he speaks. _“Say goodbye.”_

Antonius bites his tongue, determined not to turn, not to see what he feels is certain - _Brutus is gone_ \- And he feels Cleopatra’s arms slide around his waist, her chin tucked gainst his shoulder, as she stares out at the city with him. They listen, a final delectation, to the voices, to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and together they say goodbye to everything they are losing.


	6. Chapter 6

The end now. Antonius is alone. He’s staring down the blade of his own sword, panic warring with grief.

He tries to do it right. He thinks of the mark Brutus hit, just beneath the ribs, ideal, he steels himself and tries to do the same. His aim falters at the last, but the sword still cuts deep and he stumbles, cries out, falls. 

He can hear people running down the hall, he tries to get up, desperate, staring at the wound in his side, mortal but not fast enough - he thinks of Cato and somehow finds the humour to think: _No, I don’t have the guts for that_. 

Brutus could have done it.

The door crashes open, his own men breaking through, shouting, loud, confused. Antonius imagines, he can hear - under the noise and clamour of everyone else - Brutus’ quiet criticism, _“Why couldn’t you do it right?”_

Blood is filling his mouth. He can’t breathe, the tumult around him overwhelming.

“_**Cleopatra’s not dead—**_” 

_That gets through._

They hoist him up - blood surging in his throat, nauseating - they bring him to his queen. 

The women wail, tearing at their hair, but Cleopatra is pale and silent. 

“I’m sorry.” Antonius whispers- and he doesn’t know which is worse, that she’s alive and he’s about to be dead, or that he couldn’t do it cleanly. 

She breaks. Suddenly sobbing, suddenly hysterical, she clings to him, the foreign, eastern ululations of grief pounding in his skull - and Antonius tries to joke, he tries to be himself, he tries to calm her, _anything to end the wailing_. He shouts at someone to just bring him some wine and her sobs turn to throat tearing laughter. 

This isn’t how he wanted to die. He’s done everything wrong, he can’t fix anything, but he can try to get this last moment right. He tries to tell them not to mourn. He tries to tell them it isn’t fitting - If he dies now, he dies well, a Roman overcome by a Roman, the way it should be. Only Antonius should triumph over Antonius.

His vision is failing.

Cleopatra wraps herself around him, like she could hold him together, her hands are in his hair, she’s sobbing against his shoulder - but he can’t feel anything, he’s growing cold. He tries to breath, and it brings no relief.

Someone pulls the queen away from him, he wants to thank them and he can’t. Someone takes his hand, cool, reassuring press of calloused fingers against his palm, and Antonius thinks - I know you. _I know your hands._

He struggles against the darkness and the dim shadow beside him flickers, and resolves. Brutus is kneeling next to him, quiet, composed, _Roman_.

Antonius’ cloak is around his shoulders. He’s dressed like he was the day he died, but there’s no blood, no gaping wound in his side. He looks like he did when they were young, before they'd made their decisions, settled their fates.

He’s smiling.

And Antonius thinks, relief surging - _There. I can’t have done everything wrong_. 

He stops trying to keep himself up, he lets his head fall back to the floor, shadows descending. Everything is distant, the women weeping, even the pain. The only thing he can feel is Brutus’ hands wrapped around his, and as that begins to fade, Antonius tightens his grip, and lets Brutus pull him up and into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes: 
> 
> Chapter One: Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 1.1, Line 19  
and 4.15, Lines 3079-3080
> 
> Chapter Four:  
Plutarch, Life of Antony, 70.4, translation (mildly modernised) my own.
> 
> Chapter Five:  
C.P. Cavafy, "The God Abandons Antony". 
> 
> Chapter Six:  
Not directly quoting but referencing C.P. Cavafy, "Antony's Ending" and Antony and Cleopatra, 4.15, Lines 3016-3021
> 
> Finally - I know Leonard Cohen isn't everyone's jam, but...  
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbGsEV5yvns) is literally a song referencing C.P. Cavafy who is referencing Plutarch so. You've gotten this far. You're kind of contractually obligated.


End file.
